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Exxon Oil Spill Could Be 40% Larger Than Company Estimates, EPA Figures Show

Since ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline ruptured and leaked Canadian oil
across an Arkansas suburb a week ago, the company has maintained that
only "a few thousand barrels" spilled at the site.

"We've had no reason to change that at this stage," Exxon spokesman Charles Engelmann told InsideClimate News on Friday.

But earlier this week in the corrective action order it issued,
the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA),
part of the Department of Transportation, said the spill was 3,500 to
5,000 barrels.

Engelmann said Friday that "3,500 to 5,000 is not our number" and
suggested that InsideClimate News ask PHMSA where those figures came
from. A PHMSA spokeswoman confirmed that the higher figures came from
ExxonMobil Pipeline Company (EMPCO).

Reports posted online by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
estimate the spill even higher—at 4,000 to 7,000 barrels—as much as 40
percent more.

Austin Vela, the EPA spokesman at the spill site, said the agency
stands by its 4,000 to 7,000 barrel estimate. When asked why those
higher numbers aren't being included in the daily press releases issued
by the joint command of the cleanup operation, Vela did not respond. The
joint command includes five EPA employees as well as ExxonMobil
officials.

Few, if any, media reports have cited the higher official EPA figure.

UPDATE: After this story was published, ExxonMobil updated the
joint command incident report for Friday. The report now says that
approximately 5,000 barrels of oil spilled in Mayflower.

Estimating the size of a spill in the first days after an accident
can be contentious, because the volume of the spill affects the fines
and penalties companies may eventually pay for violating the Clean Water
Act. Fines can be as high as $1,100 for every barrel spilled. If gross
negligence or willful misconduct is proven, violators can be forced to
pay as much as $4,300 per barrel.

If the EPA's highest number of 7,000 barrels—equivalent to 294,000
gallons—turns out to be correct, the Arkansas spill would be roughly a
third the size of a 2010 Michigan pipeline spill. That accident, the
largest dilbit pipeline spill in U.S. history, dumped more than 1
million gallons of dilbit into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. The EPA
recently ordered Enbridge, Inc., the Canadian pipeline operator
responsible for the accident, to clean up several areas of the river
where oil continues to gather.

Estimates for the Michigan spill rose steadily after the spill
occurred in July 2010 and could rise again after Enbridge completes the
dredging operation the EPA order.

Exxon has maintained tight control over the command operation in
Mayflower, even though the EPA is the designated on-scene coordinator.
On Wednesday, an Exxon employee threatened InsideClimate News reporter Lisa Song with arrest
after she went to the command center in hopes of contacting the EPA and
PHMSA employees who are working there. Until Thursday, the daily
incident reports contained logos for ExxonMobil, the city of Mayflower
and Faulkner Country, Ark.—but not for the EPA.

So far, Exxon has not made public what its pipeline monitoring system
has recorded. These systems, standard in the industry, track the flow
of oil from origin to destination, and when a leak occurs, can provide
an estimate of the amount of oil that has gone missing into the
environment. On Tuesday a spokeswoman said the company is still
calculating the amount of oil spilled.

Exxon says it shut down the pipeline within 16 minutes of detecting a
pressure drop last Friday afternoon. The line continued to leak for 12
hours as it lost pressure, according to the PHMSA corrective action
order. Two valves 18 miles apart were shut to isolate the leaking
section of pipe.

If full, the 20-inch pipe would contain about 36,000 barrels of oil, or more than 1.5 million gallons.

An Exxon spokesman told Song that the company has drained the oil that
remained in the 18 miles of pipe after it depressurized. The spokesman
did not say how much oil was recovered from the pipe, a crucial piece of
information that would allow a more accurate calculation of the true
size of the spill.

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